1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical image system in which an image storage device storing medical images obtained by one or more imaging devices such as an X-ray computer tomography (CT) device and a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) device and one or more image reference devices referring a user to the medical images stored in the image storage device are connected to each other through a network and a medical image managing device used in the medical image system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A medical image system is known which includes imaging devices (hereinafter referred to as modalities), an image storage device (hereinafter referred to as server), and image reference devices (hereinafter referred to as viewer). In the medical image system, a technique of specifying a previous image referred to at the time of taking an image in the present checkup of the modality in the unit of series and providing an environment facilitating the comparison and interpretation of radiographic images is known (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication 2007-167634).
In the diagnosis for observing progress, images (hereinafter, referred to as previous image) acquired from the past (previous) examinations or radiographic interpretation reports on the past (previous) examinations might be referred to in the present examination of a patient for determination of imaging plan, imaging coverage, imaging direction, or imaging condition. For example, the imaging coverage, the imaging direction, and the imaging condition might be set to acquire the same images as the past images for the present examination. The acquired images are classified into layers of examination (study), series (indicator for identifying one scanning process or an image constructing process), and image and are managed by a server. A radiographic interpretation report is prepared by a radiologist (physician) on the basis of the acquired images. At this time, an image considered as being important is stored as a key image.
In the related art, there was provided a medical image diagnosis system for generating and managing objects as shared information for reproducing various imaging conditions or radiographic interpretation information on the past examination at the time of examination or preparation of the radiographic interpretation report and effectively utilizing the objects.
In the related art, it is necessary that devices or systems having means for generating and managing objects as the shared information for reproducing various imaging conditions or radiographic interpretation information on the past examination are connected through a network.
Accordingly, in devices or systems that do not have the means for generating and managing objects and are not connected, the past examination or series to be referred to in the present examination is not specified. Therefore, there is difficulty that a radiologist should specify the past image to be compared by subjective judgment, read out the specified past image from the server, correlate the read past image with the image acquired in the present examination in the unit of series, and interpret the image at the time of interpretation of radiographic image.